Abby Huntsman Tries To Defend Donald Trump On ‘The View’

The View’s new co-host, conservative Abby Huntsman, has already landed herself in hot water with her fellow castmates as she attempted to defend President Donald Trump. According to Splinter, the former Fox News anchor took up for the president after his comments regarding Puerto Rico.

The president took to Twitter on Thursday and said that the death toll numbers from Hurricane Maria (which is reported to be over 3,000) had been inflated by the Democrats in an attempt to smear him. When the hosts of the daytime talk show began to discuss the president’s latest comments, Huntsman came to his defense.

“I don’t think president Trump is solely to blame for what happened. Puerto Rico had a number of their own problems before Maria even hit. They were filing for bankruptcy, they had a power grid that was in chaos,” she said.

Her comments seemed to baffle lawyer Sunny Hostin, who responded to Huntsman’s comments by saying that Puerto Rico has been struggling for decades and that FEMA even acknowledged some of their shortcomings in how they handled the hurricane. She also reminded Huntsman of former President Barack Obama’s swift response after the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti.

Hunstman countered, saying that it was wrong to compare Trump to a dictator, referring to previous comments from the hosts.

“That’s comparing him to a Hitler, someone that gassed their own people, that starved their own people, someone that orders [sic] for thousands of their own people to die. Do you think President Trump was in the Oval Office saying ‘How can we make it worse for Puerto Ricans? How can we make it so more people die?'”

Hostin didn’t back down.

“When you see someone, the president, letting his own citizens die and then turning it around and saying that they didn’t really die, I think that that’s very similar to the acts of a dictator.”

Huntsman joined the show earlier this month following the departure of Sarah Hines. Huntsman, who is the daughter of U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman, had worked at Fox News as a general assignment anchor and at one time served as a co-host on the popular show Fox and Friends. Huntsman joins Meghan McCain, daughter of late Senator John McCain, as the conservative voice on the panel. Though she has only been on the show less than a month, this is not the first time she has clashed with her co-hosts on the show and it may not be the last.